


Look to the Future

by firefright



Series: Road to Recovery [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond, DCU
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 11:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10535331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright
Summary: After Dick is shot and badly wounded while working on a case with Bruce, he's left facing not only the loss of one of his eyes, but also the possibility that he may never get to be Nightwing again. The support he receives from his friends and family is no surprise. Slade Wilson showing up in his apartment, however? That he doesn't expect.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this story was inspired by a conversation I had with some friends regarding Dick Grayson in the Batman Beyond universe, most notably, his missing eye. After which, I had a massive craving to write a story where a similar incident ends up happening in the regular canon with Slade and Dick, Mostly because I enjoy too much the idea of them having matching eyepatches.
> 
> Enjoy!

Dick’s sitting on the couch feeling sorry for himself again when the front door to his apartment opens. 

There’s no knock, no doorbell ringing. Whoever it is has no time for any such pleasantries, which immediately kicks the battle instincts Dick still possesses even with the cocktail of drugs he’s on into high-gear. He springs off the couch, ready and willing to fight off the intruder — or at least, he attempts to.

Instead, what actually happens is that he gets halfway up to standing before a wave of dizziness and pain causes him to crash back down again, sliding halfway off the couch cushions onto the floor with all the grace of a beached whale. Only his hand grabbing the couch arm saves him from total embarrassment.

“Settle down, kid.” Slade Wilson says to him, looking unimpressed as he wanders into Dick’s living room. He’s dressed casually, and carrying what looks like a case of beer under one arm, which is a step up from the swords and armour Dick is most accustomed to seeing him in. “I’m not here to fight.”

“Slade?!” Dick says incredulously, grimacing as he makes a valiant attempt with his elbows to drag himself back up into a proper sitting position again. “What are you—”

“Heard about your accident, thought I’d stop by to see the results for myself.” he leans back when Slade walks over to him, bending down to peer closely at the thick bandage covering Dick’s right eye. He lets out a low, appreciative whistle, “Damn, but they got you good, kid.”

Dick refuses to look at him. Something which is fifty-percent easier to do now than it used to be. “Go away, Slade. I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Now, see, that’s where you’re wrong.” He feels the couch sag in the middle when Slade sits down beside him, his arm brushing against Dick’s shoulder. “In this situation, you’ll find that I’m precisely the person you want to talk to. Considering that we match now and all. Though, I think it’s safe to say I wear it better than you do.”

Despite his wholehearted determination to be miserable, Dick can’t help smiling at the comment. “So far.”

“Classic’s always better than the new, kid.” Slade chuckles. “Beer?”

Realising he’s not going to be getting rid of his unexpected guest anytime soon, and in no condition to try throwing him out himself, Dick sighs and shrugs before holding out a hand. “Sure, why not?”

Enhanced strength takes away the need for a bottle opener. Slade simply breaks the cap off with his fingers before handing one of the bottles to Dick, and he must have bought the pack just before coming up here, because the glass is cold and the taste sharp when he takes the first mouthful.

“You know I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to drink any alcohol with the drugs I’m on.”

“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to do a lot of things, Grayson. Getting shot being at the top of that list.” Slade shrugs as he opens his own. “How’re you feeling?”

“Shitty.” Dick answers, staring down at the top of the bottle. “What else?”

It’s been more than a month since he got shot. One week since he was allowed to leave the hospital. Walking is still a painful experience if he attempts to do more than cross his apartment, and the less said about his eye the better. It seems like any time he turns around he’s bumping into something, whether it be the wall, a door, or the tattered remains of his own dignity.

“Hm.” Slade downs half his beer in one go. “I see you’ve had no end of visitors.”

Dick looks up. Slade’s not kidding, every available surface in the apartment is covered in gifts and get well cards, from family and friends alike. Flowers too, as well as some boxes of chocolates he has yet to touch. And they all meant well, just…

Aside from Slade in the here and now, the only ones who had been able to be blunt and honest with him about his predicament were Jason and Barbara. Everyone else crept around the subject as if walking on eggshells, and even if he did want to see Bruce right now, Dick wouldn’t be able to, because he’s been avoiding him like the plague. Alfred was his only emissary, and Alfred is now old and frail enough in his own health that no matter how bitter he is, Dick couldn’t find it in himself to ask him to pass on any angry words.

_You always knew this kind of thing could happen to you, you knew it from day one. The very first time you put on a cape, in fact. So why are you so pissed off about it now?_

Because it was Bruce’s fault, his heart said. Because it never should have happened in the first place.

“Yeah. They’re, uh, great… everyone’s been great.”

He means that, he really does. His voice however, comes out wavering and uncertain. Dick tries to cover for it by taking another swig of beer, but Slade, as ever, is too observant to be fooled so easily.

“Doesn’t make it easier though, does it?” He says, in surprisingly gentle tones.

Dick almost laughs. “I got shot, Slade. My right eye is gone, and the doctors aren’t even sure I’ll be able to get my full range of mobility back. Nothing about this is easy.”

Losing half his vision wouldn’t be so hard if not for that last part. Other people might have cared more about the former, but not him. Dick knows that, with enough time, he can learn to compensate for his eyesight, but if his body, his arms and legs and spine, can no longer perfectly cooperate with the will of his mind, then he’ll never be able to fly again. He’ll never be Nightwing again, and that, _that’s_ the hardest part of all of this.

Dick has spent over twenty years of his life as a vigilante. He knows the rooftops of Gotham even better than he does her roads. He loves the rush of night air against his face, seeing the sights of the city from a perspective most people could only dream of. He loves to run, to fight, and now facing the possibility that he might lose that part of himself before he’s even hit forty? It’s like one of his worst nightmares come true.

“I know.”

“Yeah, right.” Dick says bitterly, “As if. Losing your eye didn’t slow you down any.” Neither would bullets if they happened to hit him. Thanks to his meta-abilities, Slade is still just as fast, as strong, and as capable now as he was the day he and Dick first met, despite the fact he’s more than sixty.

“Maybe not.” Slade admits. “It still hurt though.”

Dick winces. He remembers the pain and the blood, white-hot in his head a second before he passed out. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, kid. You’re entitled to be pissed off about it.” Slade shakes his head, “Self-pity though, that’s not you.”

“Well, unless you know of any shady government projects happening right now that I can go sign myself up for, self-pity might be the only option I have left.” Dick puts his beer down in favour of tugging his hands back through his hair. “It shouldn’t have happened, Slade. We had those guys dead to rights, it shouldn’t—”

Fingers catch his wrists, and it’s strange how Dick can remember Slade’s hands being just as big against his when he was sixteen as they are now. It’s almost like he never grew at all, or Slade is just that large a presence that he’ll never stop looming over him.

Just the same way Bruce does.

Dick isn’t so sure he likes the way they look at each other now, with mismatched eyes on both sides. Slade seems determined to hold his gaze though. 

He shivers. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry at him before, Slade. Not ever.”

It was such a dumb rookie mistake. They all knew Bruce was getting older, slowing down, even if the man himself refused to accept it. That it was only going to take one slip up for him to get himself catastrophically hurt or worse was a reality the rest of the family lived with every day. Dick had gone into that warehouse with him to watch Bruce’s back, thinking that it was the only way to keep _him_ safe from the consequences of his own stubbornness.

Instead, he’d been the one carried out on the stretcher, when the bullets from the mobster’s guns tore through Bruce’s cape and hit him instead.

Go back even two years and such a thing never would have happened. He and Bruce were partners, used to being perfectly in sync, and neither of them had ever prepared for a day where that would no longer be the case.

Slade’s fingers squeeze his wrists tighter for a moment, during which time Dick can’t help but wonder how much of the specifics of what happened he knows. More than he should, certainly. 

“Want me to pay him a visit?” Is the offer. Unlike with almost everyone else, there’s no ‘it was an accident’ or other meaningless platitudes with Slade. No urging to forgive Bruce either. “I could prove to him just how obsolete he’s getting.”

He laughs a little again. Not because it’s a joke, but because he knows Slade actually means it. Their relationship is... odd. Sometimes enemies, sometimes friends, and sometimes…

“Thanks, but no. He’s probably already feeling guilty enough. He can stew in that for a while instead.”

“I doubt it.” Slade says disapprovingly. His hands ease their grip on Dick’s though. “You’re going to be okay, kid. You know that, right?”

“I’m not so sure this time, Slade.”

“I am.” he shivers at the press of fingers to his cheek, and knows it’s not the drugs or the alcohol that’s responsible. “I told you before, self-pity’s not you. This,” his thumb slides up to touch the skin beneath the bandage over Dick’s eye, “may not be fixable, but the rest is, so long as you commit yourself.”

Dick summons a smile, “Is that your prognosis, Doctor?”

Slade doesn’t respond immediately, and Dick starts to wonder if he’s said something wrong before a sharp, telling smirk spreads across his face. His thumb drops lower, touching the corner of Dick’s mouth before he says, in a teasing tone of voice, “Careful now, I don’t think you’re in any kind of shape to be giving me that kind of talk tonight, Grayson.”

Dick blushes so hard, and so fast, that he actually feels lightheaded.

“I, uh… uh…”

Slade laughs at his reaction. “All these years, and you still blush like a teenager.” He bends down, retrieving Dick’s beer from where he left it on the floor before placing it back in his hand, “Don’t worry, we’ll save it for another night if you really are interested in going down that route.”

“All these years, and you’re still a jerk.” Dick mumbles against the mouth of the bottle before taking a sip. Slade hears what he says regardless.

“I’ve never pretended otherwise, kid. But then, that’s what you like about me, isn’t it?”

 _Not the only thing_ , Dick thinks dizzily. He’s glad Slade doesn’t kiss him then, though he looks like he’s about to for a moment. He doesn’t know if he could stand it when he’s so incapable of doing anything more.

“Now, sit tight. I’m going to order us some food.” Slade continues, as if he hasn’t just knocked Dick for a loop with a single comment.

“And then?”

“Then you’re going to drink more of those, until you’re ready to quit moping over what you can’t change and start focusing on what you can.”

Dick leans back against the couch, watching as Slade gets up and heads to his kitchen to rummage through the drawer where he keeps his takeout menus. His friends would be askance to know just how familiar Slade is with the layout of his apartment, and where he keeps things within it, but to Dick, it’s more or less normal at this point, as is Slade walking in and out of his life whenever he feels like it.

And right now? A little normality feels pretty good.

**Author's Note:**

> [My tumblr](https://firefrightfic.tumblr.com/)


End file.
